CNBC reports: The Obama administration is considering further actions to strengthen the housing market, but the bar is high: plans must help a broad swath of homeowners, stimulate the economy and cost next to nothing.
One proposal would allow millions of homeowners with government-backed mortgages to refinance them at today’s lower interest rates, about 4 percent, according to two people briefed on the administration’s discussions who asked not to be identified because they were not allowed to talk about the information.
A wave of refinancing could be a strong stimulus to the economy, because it would lower consumers’ mortgage bills right away and allow them to spend elsewhere. But such a sweeping change could face opposition from the regulator who oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and from investors in government-backed mortgage bonds.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44269404--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daily Mail reports: Cutline: A graphic from NASA shows sea levels have dropped 6 mm in the last 6 months, wiping out the rise over the past 2 years. Whoops!
“The sea-level is now rising faster along the U.S. Atlantic coast than at any time in the past 2,100 years, and this surge is linked to increasing global temperatures, an international research team reports.”
“Sea-level rise is a potentially disastrous outcome of climate change, as rising temperatures melt land-based ice and warm ocean waters,” said study co-author Benjamin Horton of the University of Pennsylvania. The study was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”
The drop is the largest in the generally upward curve of sea level measured over the past 18 years, although there have been other downward bumps. Another big one occurred in 1998 and 1999, and both have been linked to La Niña, the periodic cooling of equatorial ocean waters in the eastern Pacific. The ocean region cycles back and forth between La Niña and El Niño, a periodic warming.
“It’s definitely happened before, and will definitely happen again,” Willis said.
So what is the moral to this story? All things on heaven and Earth are cyclical and mankind — a cork bobbing in the universal sea — is just getting around to understand a few of these cycles. It took us just 2,000 years to figure out that the planets circled the Sun and not the Earth.
NASA is blaming “one of the strongest La Niñas in recent memory.”
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/40889
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Daily Caller reports: WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have found another thing to blame on the climate demon
El Nino: civil strife in poor tropical countries.
A new study released Wednesday finds a significant increase in unrest during the years of an El Nino, which is a regular climatic event that tends to warm up and dry out tropical regions.
“When people get warm and uncomfortable, they get irritable, they are more prone to fight,” said Mark Cane, a professor of Earth and
climate sciences at Columbia University and co-author of the study.
“People do like to fight and El Nino conditions help.”
The flip side of El Nino, a La Nina, is also the most peaceful time for these tropical countries,
Read more:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/24/study-links-el-nino-climate-to-civil-wars-unrest/#ixzz1W36mMMHt
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Daily Caller reports: The Obama administration is setting the stage for the dismantling of the Trans-
Alaska Pipeline and poses the greatest threat to its existence today, according to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings.
The 800-mile pipeline cost $8 billion to construct in the 1970s, and has moved more than 18 billion barrels of crude oil. Three oil companies constructed it, in the face of significant opposition from environmentalists, in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo.
The federal government approved the pipeline as part of a strategy to secure domestic alternatives to oil from the Middle East. But the Natural Resources Committee notes that the law authorizing the then-controversial pipeline’s
construction came with a caveat: If the pipeline should ever cease being viable, it must dismantled.
That day could come within the next decade.
Indeed, according to Alyeska, the company that manages the pipeline, at these lower production levels the pipeline may become useless as “low flow” permits ice crystals to grow. A low enough flow of oil could also allow surrounding soils to freeze, endangering the pipeline through frost heaves and other ground-buckling phenomena.
Balash also warned Congress that shutting down the pipeline would have a “crushing impact on Alaskans” because one-third of the state’s economy is tied to oil production.
Nonetheless,
environmental activists have successfully lobbied the Obama administration to keep Alaska’s vast energy resources — including an estimated 45 billion barrels of oil and 114 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — “under lock and key,” in Hastings’ chosen words.
Read more:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/25/northern-red-tape-congressman-warns-alaska-pipeline-could-be-dismantled-within-10-years/#ixzz1W37ZcVZr-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Cincinnati comes this report: Monday night, at a “town hall” meeting in North Avondale featuring U.S. Rep.
Steve Chabot (R), video cameras owned by two Democratic activists were seized by a Cincinnati police officer at the direction of Chabot’s staff.
A Chabot spokesman said the had the cameras seized “to protect the privacy of constituents” at the event, although there were at least two media outlets at the North Avondale Recreation Center filming the meeting.
http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics/2011/08/24/democrats-cameras-seized-by-police-at-chabot-town-hall-meeting/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fox News reports: Pentagon spokesman David Lapan offered an operational update Tuesday of how the "kinetic military operation" known as Operation Unified Protector in
Libya has played out -- it included 5,357 sorties flown by U.S. forces since April 1 until Tuesday.
1. Cost to U.S.
The estimated cost to the Department of Defense for Libya operations is approximately $896 million through July 31, 2011. This cost includes amounts for daily military operations, munitions used in the operation President-directed drawdown of DoD supplies and humanitarian assistance.
2. Foreign Military Sales
From the beginning of OUP through Aug. 19, the U.S. has sold participating allies and partners approximately $221.9 million worth of ammunition, repair parts, fuel and technical assistance.
3. Non-Lethal Aid
The Defense Department has expended about $12.5 million of the $25 million drawdown authority for non-lethal aid to Libya, which includes approximately $1 million for ready to eat meals. The MRE drop on May 10, was 10,000 cases -- 120,000 meals -- delivered to Benghazi.
Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/23/by-numbers-defense-department-expenses-tied-to-libyan-rebel-fight/#ixzz1W3B8tIFS------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Washington Times reports: U.S. Department of Agriculture activists want to impose their intense brand of homosexual sensitivity training government-wide, including a discussion that compares “heterosexism” - believing marriage can be between only one man and one woman - to racism.
USDA officials have asked the
Office of Personnel Management (
OPM), which oversees all federal employee policies, to impose its gay-awareness programs on all federal departments, according to an internal newsletter. The training includes a discussion of “heterosexism” and compares it to racism. It says people who view marriage as being between only one man and one woman are guilty of “heterosexism.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/17/gay-activists-seek-approval-govt-training/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheriffs Begin Thumbing Their Nose At Obama's Unconstitutional Executive Order Immigration Waiver
At this time, close to 20% of those illegals coming into our country have broken American laws, never mind their probable lawlessness in their country of origin. They feel our President should not be deciding which laws should be enforced by law enforcement officers, and which ones shouldn't. This will encourage further illegal entries. They feel we are not un-American for not submitting to Obama's edict as a quasi-dictator, according to the Pinal County, AZ sheriff. Some sheriffs are deciding to ignore President Obama's new edict to stop deportation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0UTz4Q_APU&feature=player_embedded
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Breitbart repots: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway will invest $5 billion in Bank of America, stepping in to shore up the company in the same way he helped prop up Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis.
[What are we to make of the fact that just prior to Warren Buffett's investment of $5 billion into Bank of America, he spoke with our President? He is now supporting Obama's reelection campaign.....]
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Haaretz reports: "Iran believes that whoever is for humanity should also be for eradicating the Zionist regime (Israel) as symbol of suppression and discrimination," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with a Lebanese television network, carried by ISNA. http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/ahmadinejad-iran-is-determined-to-eradicate-israel-1.380629
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Tulsa World reports: President Barack Obama alone is to blame for the nation’s budget deficit – and just about everything else, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe told the Broken Arrow Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday. “We now have a president, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, who is destroying these very institutions that made America great,” Inhofe, R-Okla., said.
Inhofe went on to say the Obama administration has “disarmed America,” is solely responsible for the federal budget deficit, mostly responsible for the nation’s dependence on imported oil and suffocating business with regulations.
He also said Obama engineered the House Republicans’ ban on earmarks in order to give himself more control of the budget. http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110824_336_0_BROKEN695237 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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